Isham Reavis, Pioneer Lawyer and Judge
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For membership information, see: http://nebraskahistory.org/admin/members/index.htm Article Title: Isham Reavis, Pioneer Lawyer and Judge Full Citation: John S Goff, “Isham Reavis, Pioneer Lawyer and Judge,” Nebraska History 54 (1973): 1-46 URL of article: http://www.nebraskahistory.org/publish/publicat/history/full-text/NH1973IReavis.pdf Date: 11/21/2014 Article Summary: Judge Reavis, the best-known lawyer in Nebraska in frontier days, began writing his autobiography in 1909. The part he completed is reproduced here. It begins with his arrival in Falls City in 1858 and describes his first decade in the area. Cataloging Information: Names: Isham Reavis, Abraham Lincoln, David Dorrington, Anne B Wood Dorrington, Anne Mariah Dorrington Reavis, William Kenceleur, A D Kirk, Frank Goldsberry, Wingate King, John C Miller, Sam Thomas, John A Burbank, J Edward Burbank, John Rothenberger, Sewel R Jameson, Elmer Dundy, Jonathan James Marvin, Joseph Miller Place Names: Beardstown, Illinois; Rulo, Falls City and Archer (Salem), Nebraska; La Paz (Yuma), Arizona Territory Keywords: Isham Reavis, Nebraska Senate, Arizona Supreme Court, Federal Clique, McCoy Survey, Half-Breed Tract, Fourth of July, the Broadaxe Photographs / Images: Isham Reavis; Anne Dorrington Reavis; east side of Stone Street in Falls City, 1868; War Eagle; west line of the Half-Breed Tract, redrawn in 1856 to include Archer; steam sawmill operated by John Shook of Barada Precinct in northeastern Richardson County in 1879; Salem, second county seat of Richardson County; Falls City’s second county courthouse, built about 1875 Isham Reavis, 1836-1914. ISHAM REA VIS, PIONEER LAWYER AND JUDGE I' By JOHNS. GOFF INTRODUCTION Of Judge Isham Reavis it has been said that he was "a jurist of exceptional ability and ·renown, a lawyer of profound learning, a pleader of exceptional force, and a strong man who sliced and carved out a career during an age when strong and sturdy characters were necessary to create a state. " 1 In his day he was probably the best-known lawyer in the state of Nebraska, and in addition he spent several eventful years in newly opened Arizona Territory as a federal judge. The roots of the man go back to the "land of Lincoln"; he was partially self-educated in the frontier tradition. During his long and eventful life he saw the nation pass through its great Civil War and then develop as an industrialized world power. Judge Reavis lived long enough to become the patriarch of a numerous and important Nebraska family. The ancestors of Isham Reavis were Southerners, and some of those of the Revolutionary War generation fought at the battle of King's Mountain. 2 His father, also named Isham Reavis, was a farmer who had come originally from North Carolina. 3 His mother Mahalie Beck Reavis, born in Virginia but reared in Kentucky, became the mother of thirteen children of whom Isham was the youngest. The Reavis family lived on a Sangamon River Valley farm in Cass County, Illinois, near Beardstown. Isham was born on January 28, 1836. The boy remained on the farm until his father died in 1845, meanwhile attending the public school at Beardstown. - I I 2 NEBRASKA HISTORY He later attended an academy at Virginia, Illinois, and concluded his formal schooling at Illinois College, Jacksonville, from which he withdrew when his mother died.4 Deciding upon the law as a career, Isham Reavis asked for advice in a letter to a Springfield lawyer who had years before occasionally stopped overnight with the Reavises while working with a surveying party. In due time a reply was received: 'Springfield [Illinois], Nov. 5, 1855 Isham Reavis, Esq. My dear Sir: I have just reached home, and found your letter of the 23rd ult. I am from home too much of my time, for a young man to read law with me advantageously.lf you are resolutely determined to make a lawyer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already. It is but a small matter whether you read with anybody or not. I did not read with anyone. Get the books, and read and study them till you understand them in their principal features; and that is the main thing. It is of no consequence to be in a large town while you are reading. I read at New Salem, which never had three hundred people living 'in it. The books, and your capacity for understanding them, are just the same in all places. Mr. Dummer is a very clever man and an excellent lawyer (much better than I in law-learning); and I have no doubt he will cheerfully tell you what books to read and also loan you the books. Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing. Very truly your friend, A. Lincoln5 The Mr. Dummer referred to by Lincoln was Henry E. Dummer of Beardstown, educated at Bowdoin College and Cambridge Law School, who was later an Illinois state senator. 6 While it is not clear whether or not young Reavis did study with Dummer, nevertheless on July 30, 1857, he was admitted to the Illinois bar. 7 But less than a year after Reavis began the practice of law in his native Cass County, he boarded a steamboat which carried him up the Missouri River to Rulo, Nebraska. From the landing he walked inland until he reached Falls City in southeastern NebraskaTerritory.8 He arrived May 8, 1858,9 ·and with the exception of four years when he served as a federal judge in Arizona Territory, Falls City would be home to Reavis for the rest of his life. After arriving he established a law office in the newly formed town, which had been established only the year before and was still surrounded by open prairie. The first couple to establish a home there had been David and Anne B. Wood Darrington, later referred to as "father and mother of Falls City."1 0 The Dorringtons were free-staters and cooperated with those who ISHAM REA VIS 3 were spiriting slaves from central Missouri by way of Kansas and southeastern Nebraska to safety. 11 Their daughter Anne Mariah, born in Utica, New York, on October 24, 1845, was graduated in the early 1860's from Elmira Female College in her native state and on a visit with her parents in Falls City met Isham Reavis. For a time she taught in the first public school established in Richardson County, but on May 19, 1864, her teaching career ended when she man·ied the young lawyer. The Reavises became parents of five children, all of whom were born in Falls City. A son Isham died in childhood. The eldest, Annie (April 7, 1865-August 16, 1956), who became Mrs. Thomas J. Gist, was active in the Nebraska women's club movement, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and helped organize the women's auxiliary of the American Legion. David Darrington Reavis (December 19, 1867-December 21, 1963) was a lawyer, farmer, scholar, artist, and musician. Charles Frank Reavis (September 5, 1870-May 26, 1932) was a member of the United States House of Representatives, first Nebraska district, 1915-1923. Burton Isham Reavis (December 2, 1875-February 3, 1932) was a merchant of Falls City. As an indication of Reavis' rise in importance in his home area, he was elected district judge in 1867 and the following year was chosen a member of the Nebraska Senate. The regular session of the 1869 Legislature, held from January 7 to February 15, was a relatively important one, and Reavis played a significant role in it. He introduced a bill to aid railroad construction by disposing of the state's public lands which had been earmarked for this purpose. He also sponsored a proposal to have Nebraska aid in the construction of the Abraham Lincoln memorial and tomb at Springfield, Illinois. The bill passed February 15 after the defeat of a substitute motion to give funds to the Nebraska Soldiers' Association. Thomas W. Tipton, a friend who was elected to the United States Senate by the Legislature, had Reavis' vigorous support when candidates were debated on the floor. 12 Mrs. Reavis went to Lincoln on weekends to be with her husband during Senate recesses. 1 3 When General Grant became President in 1869, he had the customary privilege of making many appointments to federal offices. At this time Isham Reavis wished to become a justice of the Supreme Court in newly created Wyoming Territory. Accordingly he asked friends and associates to write letters of Anne Darrington Reavis was the daughter of early Falls City settlers. Before she married Isham Reavis, she was a grade school teacher. recommendation in his behalf to President Grant. Judge Elmer S. Dundy, Governor David Butler, and other local notables did so. From outside of Nebraska came endorsements from William Pitt Kellogg, formerly of the state but then in Louisiana; Solomon L. Spink, congressional delegate from Dakota Terri tory; Richard Yates, the Illinois "war governor"; and Oliver P. Morton of Indiana. 14 For some unexplained reason Isham Reavis did not get the Wyoming appointment but instead found himself nominated associate justice of the Arizona Supreme Court on April 16, 1869.